Research interests
Engagement with policy and practice underlies my research / consultancy and I have considerable experience of knowledge exchange ensuring policy relevance and maximum impact.
My recent research and consultancy in Malawi (since 2004) involves collaborating internationally with universities, government and non-governmental organizations; while being informed by political economy and feminist theoretical approaches (with a concern for ethics).
Knowledges, Cultures & Space research group
Institute of Applied Ethics
Centre for Spirituality Studies
Major research projects:
Building an Evidence Base to Support and Enhance Community Health Workers' (informal) use of Mobile Phones in Ghana, Malawi and Ethiopia
MRC-Wellcome Trust-DFID-ESRC 2018-2019 £197,472 PI Prof Kate Hampshire (Durham)
Social Cash Transfers, generational relations and youth poverty trajectories in rural Lesotho and Malawi
ESRC-DFID PI Prof Nicola Ansell (Brunel), CoIs Robson, van Blerk, Hajdu, Mwathunga, Hlabana 2015-2019, £338,000
https://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/Projects/cash-transfers-youth#
Mobile Phones and Youth in Africa
ESRC-DFID PI Prof Gina Porter (Durham) co-I Kate Hampshire (Durham) et al 2012-2015, £460,000
https://www.dur.ac.uk/child.phones/
Children, Transport and Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa
Developing a Child-Centred Evidence Base to Improve Policy and Change Thinking Across Africa
ESRC-DFID PI Prof Gina Porter (Durham), co-I Kate Hampshire (Durham) et al 2006-2009, £353,932.
https://www.dur.ac.uk/child.mobility/
Averting 'New Variant Famine' in Southern Africa: building food-secure livelihoods with AIDS-affected young people
DFID-ESRC £201,757 2007-8 PI Prof Nicola Ansell (Durham), Co-Is Lorraine van Blerk (Dundee) & Elsbeth Robson
Postgraduate supervision
I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students in these areas of research interest (and beyond):
Sub-Saharan Africa
Global Development
Children and Youth
Gender and Feminism
Ethics and Justice
COVID-19
CURRENT PhD STUDENTS
Mavuto Banda (University of Hull studentship 2020-2023/4) 'Unintended victims of modern humanitarian ant-slavery bans: An evaluation of child labour bans in Malawi's commercial agriculture' (Lead supervisor)
Lucia Crowther (Wellcome Trust Doctoral Studentship 2021-2024/5) 'Exploring 'the domestic' in contemporary hospice architecture: A critical examination of the architecture and design of in-patient palliative care facilities in England' (Acting lead/third supervisor)
Saira Mian (University of Hull studentship 2022-2024/5) 'Mapping geographical intersectional inequalities in deathscapes and topographies of bereavement' (lead supervisor)
Emmanuel Abalo (ESRC WRDTP studentship 1+3 2021-2024/5) 'The governance and politics of plastic waste management in Ghana' (lead supervisor)
Thandie Hlabana (Leverhulme Centre for Water Cultures scholarship 2022-2025/6) 'Gendered survival: Women and water crises in Southern Africa' (lead supervisor)
Ryan Clarke (University of Hull studentship 2022-2024/5) 'Learning from historical disease pandemics about strategies for memorialising remote deaths' (third supervisor)
Stephen Nachibi (ESRC WRDTP studentship 1+3 2022-2025/6) 'Ethnobotanical knowledge and sustainable food systems in Africa' (second supervisor)
Dzifa Puplampu (ESRC WRDTP studentship 1+3 2022-2025/6) 'Gendered perspectives of climate change in informal settlements of Accra, Ghana' (lead supervisor)
COMPLETED PhDs (Lead Supervisor)
Nicola Ansell 1999 ‘Southern African secondary schools: places of empowerment for rural girls? Cases from Lesotho and Zimbabwe', Department of Environmental Social Sciences: Keele University. (now Professor in Human Geography, Brunel University).
Mayeso Lazaro 2018 (University of Hull studentship 2015 -2018) ‘Grandfathers caring for orphaned grandchildren in rural Southern Malawi: Invisible in plain sight?' (now Lecturer in Human Ecology, University of Malawi).
Bronia Cross 2019 (University of Hull studentship 2014 - 2017) ‘The historical geographies of European Childhood in Colonial Africa: Children's lives in Nyasaland 1889-1964'.
Kalliopi Kaparounaki 2019 (University of Hull studentship 2014 - 2017) ‘Caregiving children in Malawi: Children's work within families affected by illness and disability' (now Lecturer in social work, Dundee University).
Mbali Pewa 2020 (Commonwealth Scholarship 2015 - 2019) ‘Household Waste Management in a South African Township' (now Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of the Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, South Africa)